11 Extinct Animals That Have Been Photographed Alive
Syrian Wild Ass
The Syrian Wild Ass was likely extinct when the last known captive animal died at the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, in 1928. It once had a wide range throughout Mesopotamia, where reports were common of large herds which used to roam wildly in the mountains and desert steppes of the Middle East.
Although already threatened beforehand, it is said that the Syrian Wild Ass completely collapsed during World War I, when their habitat was overrun with heavily armed Turkish and British troops. One account remarked that ”it could not resist the power of the modern guns in the hands of the Anazeh and Shammar nomads, and its speed, great as it may have been, was not sufficient always to escape from the velocity of the modern motor car which more and more is replacing the Old Testament Camel-Caravan.”
Baiji River Dolphin
The inevitable appears to have arrived for the Baiji River Dolphin, a peaceful, majestic dolphin which had inhabited China’s Yangtze River for at least the last 20 million years. The dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an expedition late in 2006 failed to record a single individual after an extensive search of the animal’s entire range.
Although unconfirmed sightings have come out since then, it’s unlikely that any living individuals, should they still exist, would be able find each other and breed. This tragic demise makes the Baiji Dolphin the first recorded extinction of a cetacean in modern times.
The population had been declining rapidly in recent decades since the rise of Chinese industrialization, which has utilized the Yangtze River as one of its primary arteries. The river is now one of the worst polluted major waterways in the world, being heavily relied upon for transportation and hydroelectricity. Roughly 12% of the world’s human population lives and works within the river’s catchment zone.
Traditional Chinese tales refer to the Baiji as a symbol of peace and prosperity. However, that traditional veneration was denounced during China’s “Great Leap Forward”, which called for hunting the animal in the name of redefining Chinese prosperity.
Regrettably, the Chinese may have got what they called for. Now that the dolphin is extinct, it’s difficult to avoid drowning the kind of prosperity it once symbolized along with it.
Image Credits: Ibex photo by José M. Gómez under the GNU Free Documentation License; Baiji Dolphin photo copyright by the baiji.org foundation, Steven Leatherwood; All other images are public domain via Wiki Commons
Please see http://www.quaggaproject.org which is an attempt to revive the Quagga.
This gives me grief. I’ve always learned and wanted to see as many of the world’s animals whose paths I’ll be lucky enough to cross. I almost get sociopathic urges when companies and governments can make the same decisions over the life in their domain. It’s not the weak people we’re thinking about.
I never collected baseball cards or football cards, but I remember having animal cards on the every single one of these animals. To hear of three that have since gone extinct makes me very angry.
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That stinks, I would have loved to hunt the Tasmanian Tiger, it would look really good above my fireplace.
Hi,
I’m from Spain, near to the “Parque nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordesa_y_Monte_Perdido_National_Park )”, the home of the lasts bucardos -Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica, the Pyrenean Ibex-, and I should say that the photograph used in the article is a Capra pyrenaica hispanica: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capra_pyrenaica_hispanica
Not a Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucardo
http://www.bucardo.es/images/Bucardo_m_Clos1_72p.jpg
http://www.bucardo.es/images/BUCARDO1_1_ZURICH_082008_KW.jpg
I believe the passenger pigeon is alive and well. There are a pair of what looks like those birds, which nest in my yard every year.
Great ariticle but I saw a Syrian Wild Ass at Whipsnade Zoo, UK on Wednesday.
It is sad that many animals have gone extinct due to human causes. However, it should be pointed out that many animals go extinct from natural causes as well, and that many new animals are often discovered. This is the process the world works by. There is no excuse for causing artificial extinction, but if we stop making animals go extinct, it won’t stop some from doing it anyway.
If you want animals to stop going extinct, invest in small businesses in poor countries. Don’t donate money, that helps no one, invest it in infrastructure and business. The reason most habitats are being destroyed is not “evil government” or “evil big business.” It’s poor people. Poor people just trying to survive and eat destroy rain forest and jungle to create farmland and build shacks out of the lumber. When it comes down to it, I don’t blame them. I’ll put my family above an endangered species any day, but wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have to make that choice? So invest in agriculture technology and education, fair trade goods, roads, sanitation, and improved sources of drinking water in poor countries.
Hmmm…that’s a long rant, but I’m tired of the reasons being glossed over with simple terms like “evil” and the blame falling on big corporations and governments.
There is such a thing as the circle of life. I find it fascinating every time I read an article that blames mankind for God’s works. We certainly are a narcissistic species.
“Vintage stupidity at its best.”
Almost as stupid as a steep rise in taxation during a recession.